DENVER – The University of Denver men's tennis team (5-0, 0-0 Summit) concluded a three-match homestand with its fifth win of the season, taking down Idaho State, 6-1, at Denver Tennis Park on Thursday.
 
Denver grabbed a 3-0 lead before the Bengals got on the board to stay alive until graduate student Marvin Schaber clinched the DU victory at No. 2 singles. DU added two more points with wins on the top two singles courts afterward.
 
Coach's Notes:
From head coach Drew Eberly: "I'm happy to come out of here with a win against a good Idaho State team. They're a very good team and well coached, especially up top in singles. We were in some tight situations there late in the match, but our guys stuck together, competed hard and stuck it out, which is nice to see.
 
"We've got a tough match on Sunday at Utah State, which we'll have to be at our best at to come out of there with a similar result."
 
Doubles:
DU's doubles lineup used two, 6-2 wins to secure the first point of the day. On Court 3, the relatively new team of senior Peter Sallay and sophomore Raffaello Papajcik wrapped up things first after breaking for a 4-1 lead and then adding a second break.
 
In the No. 2 doubles matchup, senior Nicolas Herrero Cuesta and junior Rikuto Yamaguchi also dropped just two games in a similar fashion to Sallay/Papajcik, breaking midway through for a 3-2 lead and running away with it from there.
 
Graduate students Marvin Schaber and Anish Sriniketh had things on serve for the entirety of their No. 1 doubles match, leaving things at 3-4 when the point had been clinched.
 
Singles:
Sallay put Denver up 2-0 on the scoreboard with his first singles victory of the season. He broke for the first time in his second return game and raced out to a 5-2 lead before serving out the first set. The second set stayed closer until the senior broke for 5-4.
 
Sriniketh remained undefeated in singles so far in 2024, collecting his fourth straight-sets win and his third in the No. 5 slot. He broke in the first and the last games of the first set before fighting back from a break deficit in the second set. Down 3-4, he won the final three games to put DU just a point away from the overall win.
 
Idaho State stayed alive in the dual with a win at No. 6 singles, but Schaber sealed things for the Pioneers with his first appearance for DU at No. 2 singles. The first seven games went on serve until the graduate student garnered the first break for a 5-3 lead. In the second set, he rallied back from down 2-5 and forced a tiebreak, dropping just a single point early before easily taking it, 7-1.
 
Not long after Schaber clinched it for Denver, Herrero Cuesta gave DU a fifth point on the day in three sets. He held 3-1 and 5-2 leads in the first set, eventually closing it at 6-3 – the same score he finished with in the third set, coming back from losing the second set and, at one point, losing a break lead in the final frame before regaining control and taking the match.
 
As Herrero Cuesta was wrapping up his No. 1 singles match, junior Daniel Sancho Arbizu found himself starting his second of two tiebreaks at No. 3 singles. In the first set, he traded breaks early before the set stayed on serve into the breaker, gaining a minibreak lead midway through and finishing it, 7-4. He held a lead early in the second set but found himself back on serve again at 4-all, fighting back to get to another breaker. He headed into the first change of ends up a minibreak but was all level at 6-all at the next change, though he would win the next two points to finish with a win.
 
Up Next:
The University of Denver men's tennis team wraps up its week with a trip to Utah State on Sunday, February 11, at 12 p.m. MT.
 
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